Used mainly in industries manufacturing secondary battery, display, LED, semiconductor, and other state-of-the-art products,
rare earth elements (REEs) remain in demand and such demand has increased drastically. However, due to the lack of alternative materials
and recycling technologies for REEs, many countries encounter difficulty in acquiring REEs.

As part of the efforts to secure REEs, some studies have developed wet process techniques in the material flow process, particularly for
scrapping and disposal. Among these techniques, the agent extraction method and liquid/solid separation process allow the separation/
refinement of high-quality REEs due to their excellent selection and separation performance. This study used Amberite XAD-7HP as
the solvent impregnated resin and D2EHPA as the agent to separate each REE from the standard sample solution, mixed with heavy
REEs (e.g., La and Ba) and light REEs (e.g., Eu, Tb, and Y). Each one of these REEs was about 100ppm in DI water using extraction
chromatography.

In this study, the pH change of HCI was between 0.1 and 3N, and the flow speed of the solution was between 0.9 and 2.6ml/min. The extraction
result was analyzed by ICP-AES. Each REE was successfully separated with the HCI pH between 0.1N and 1N, and with the
speed of the HCI between 1.6 and 2.6m/min.

Keywords:

Amberite, extraction chromatography, HREE, LREE, recycling.

Affiliation:

Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Incheon, Incheon 406-772, Korea.